Defender`s Office Called `Overstaffed`

February 28, 1985|By Charles Mount and James Warren.

Cook County Commissioner Harold Tyrrell (R., La Grange Park) charged Wednesday that the county public defender`s office is ``grossly overstaffed`` and said he will propose slashing the 1985 budget for the public defender by $528,000.

At the same time, the Cook County state`s attorney`s office, which prosecutes people the public defender defends, is predicting ``a disaster in the making`` if the county board cannot find money for more prosecutors to handle juvenile cases.

To meet this need, State`s Atty. Richard Daley is asking the financially strapped county board for an additional $680,000 to fund 18 more assistant state`s attorneys, as well as nine support personnel.

The need for more prosecutors is prompted by a state law that soon will mandate that juvenile cases come to trial within 120 days, officials in the state`s attorney`s office said.

Both Tyrrell`s proposal and the state`s attorney`s request will be considered by the county board Thursday, the deadline for passage of the 1985 Cook County budget.

Talking to a reporter Wednesday about staffing in the public defender`s office, Tyrrell made no mention of the state`s attorney`s request for additional funds and employees.

But Tyrrell said the public defender`s office has more employees than the state`s attorney`s criminal division, yet has less work.

Tyrrell said the public defender`s office will have 487 employees under the proposed 1985 county budget, compared to 445 in the criminal division of the state`s attorney`s office.

The state`s attorney`s office has additional employees to handle civil lawsuits for the county.

Tyrrell pointed out that the state`s attorney`s criminal division must prosecute all Cook County criminal cases, but on the defense side, many defendants are represented by private lawyers.

The public defender normally represents defendants who cannot afford private lawyers. But even in some of those cases, judges appoint private lawyers to represent indigent defendants, and the private lawyers are paid out of county funds.

Considering only appeals of criminal cases, Tyrrell said that in 1984 the state`s attorney`s office had 36 attorneys handling 8,326 criminal appeals from the prosecution standpoint. The public defender`s office had 65 attorneys handling only 3,487 appeals, Tyrrell said.

Tyrrell said the number of public defender employees in the Cook County judicial system is recommended by a committee headed by Chief Judge Harry Comerford.

``If the judges still want to have 487 in the office, let them figure out how to pay them,`` Tyrrell said.

He said he will recommend that the public defender`s office appropriation be trimmed from $15,019,741 to $14,491,596.

Justine Knipper, first assistant public defender, disagreed with Tyrrell`s charges. ``I do not think the office is overstaffed,`` she said.

Knipper said the state`s attorney`s office had three lawyers in many courtrooms to handle the caseload compared to two public defenders. ``The public defender`s office has fewer lawyers than the state`s attorney`s criminal division,`` Knipper said. But she said she did not know the number of employees overall because she was contacted at home.

On the state`s attorney`s side, Daley said he needs the added prosecutors and support personnel to comply with the law that mandates speedy trials for juveniles. The law takes effect July 1.

Daley said that statistics on juvenile cases show that nearly 40 percent of the 14,000 juvenile cases filed each year take more than 120 days to come to trial and, thus, would have to be thrown out under the new law. Nearly 14 percent of those cases now take more than 200 days to come to trial, Daley said.

According to Daley`s statistics, a majority of the threatened cases involve allegations of serious crimes. A high proportion of those would be considered felonies if committed by adults.

``There is no debating that the dismissal of thousands of serious delinquency cases would be a crippling blow to public safety, especially the effort to fight gang violence,`` Daley has written in letters to board members that urge the new positions.

Board member Jeanne Quinn said Wednesday that she shares Daley`s anxiety over a lack of funding. She said she will propose assistance for Daley.